


Baptism

by Aethelflaed



Category: Good Omens (TV)
Genre: Asexual Aziraphale/Crowley (Good Omens), Aziraphale Loves Crowley (Good Omens), Bathing/Washing, Because Gabriel is a Bad Angel, Comforting Crowley (Good Omens), Crowley Loves Aziraphale (Good Omens), Emotional Hurt/Comfort, Heaven is Terrible (Good Omens), Hopeful Ending, Hugs, Hurt Aziraphale (Good Omens), Hurt/Comfort, Ineffable Husbands (Good Omens), M/M, Non-Sexual Intimacy, Public Humiliation, Sad, Soft Crowley (Good Omens)
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-12-22
Updated: 2020-12-22
Packaged: 2021-03-10 20:29:14
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,390
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28243191
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Aethelflaed/pseuds/Aethelflaed
Summary: Aziraphale and Crowley thought they were free, but Heaven calls their wayward angel back to get the last word.After being humiliated and robbed of everything that matters, Aziraphale seeks out Crowley and the one place he will always belong.--“I just...don’t know what to do anymore. I thought I finally could...make my own life.” Aziraphale looked down at his fingers, resting on the bed between them. No ring. Would he ever get used to that? “And they come along to remind me. That they’re in control. That they can still hurt me, still take away everything I have. Still leave me feeling so weak and alone.”
Relationships: Aziraphale/Crowley (Good Omens)
Comments: 41
Kudos: 184
Collections: Hurt Aziraphale





	Baptism

**Author's Note:**

> CW for Heaven's general overbearingness and public humiliation. Lots of comfort, but I stop shy of a happy ending or solution. This fic is focused mostly on Crowley coaxing Aziraphale through his shock, rather than getting to a happy ever after.
> 
> Contains non-sexual nudity.

Aziraphale gazed across the desk at Gabriel, heart pounding in his throat. He swallowed, tried to form words yet again. “What...precisely...do you…” His voice died once more.

“I mean, that building is, and always has been, the property of Heaven. You used it - we thought - as a base from which to do  _ our _ work, though now we know it was where you planned treasons and carried out...unnatural relations with that demon.”

“C-Crowley and I--”

“I don’t want to hear it!” Gabriel shuddered. “Might just have the property destroyed. Properly cleansed of both your presences. Build something else in its place. Something modern.”

“But...My shop…” His chest squeezed until he couldn’t breathe.

“No, Aziraphale.  _ My shop.” _ Gabriel slid a document across the desk. “Lest you forget.”

Aziraphale stared blankly at the deed; the alias written on it was one of Gabriel’s, bold strokes of dark ink, sealed by the Achangel’s sigil, glowing unobtrusively in the corner, to prevent any supernatural beings from tampering with it.

He took another breath, but it was a struggle.

“I’ll need...time...get my...affairs in order…”

“No.” Gabriel leaned across the desk, hands pressed flat on its pristine white surface. “Last time I gave you a few hours to ‘put your affairs in order,’ you used them to - to conspire with a  _ renegade demon, _ to undermine  _ everything _ we’d built, everything we’d spent  _ six thousand years _ trying to accomplish!” His voice echoed off the distant walls.

“Then just...my possessions…” his voice shrank even smaller. “My books…”

Gabriel looked him straight in the eyes and snapped his fingers. Azirpahale felt something tug, deep inside his gut - and go slack. “That property is now sealed to you. Neither you nor your - your  _ demonic co-conspirator _ can ever enter it again.”

It had been easier in Hell, to swagger around with pretend confidence, to order even Michael around. Not just because he wore Crowley’s face - though that helped - but because, bad as it was, Hell was a new place. A fresh start.

Here in Heaven, facing Gabriel, countless eternities of helplessness pressed down on his newfound confidence, smothering it, annihilating it, leaving nothing but the trembling wreck that Aziraphale had always known, deep down in his core, that he  _ really _ was.

“Please,” he managed.

“Oh, I think we’re just about done here,” Gabriel continued briskly, a gleam in his dead violet eyes the only indication he’d heard what Aziraphale said. “Just one last minor detail to take care of.”

Aziraphale had already taken as much as he could stand; so when Gabriel placed the pitcher of holy water between them, he couldn’t quite decipher what it might mean.

“There are...rumors,” Gabriel began. “We do our best to quash them, but angels talk. They say you survived your...divinely ordained retribution because you’ve Fallen, the first to do so in thousands of years. It has caused, as you can imagine, some unrest.”

Aziraphale stared at the pitcher. “You...know perfectly well I’m not a demon,” he managed in little more than a whisper. “You - you’d sense it…”

“Yes. I would.” Gabriel circled the table and leaned close, forcing Aziraphale to stumble back a step. “But I’m not the one who needs to be convinced.”

\--

It was the largest assembly of angels Aziraphale had seen for at least three thousand years, though of course he’d missed the final massing of the army at the Apocalypse.

Row upon row of them, divided into nine groups, representatives of every Choir. Standing perfectly at attention, as only angels could - not a shuffle of a foot, not a breath out of place.

“Let…” Aziraphale’s voice was swallowed by the expanse of the room, a thin and broken thing twisting away to nothing. He swallowed, and tried again to repeat the words Gabriel had given him. 

“Let it be known that I, the f-former Principality Azirpahale--” he bit his lip and tried not to let them see him tremble “--I conspired with a demon against Heaven, not because I am Fallen, but because of...my own...deficient nature.”

Michael tipped the pitcher of Holy Water over his head.

It splashed into his hair, running in rivulets down his face and past his ears. Soaking into his jacket, his waistcoat, his shirt.

A few drops were all they needed to prove his statement true. But that wasn’t the point, was it?

Water ran faster down his brow, forcing Aziraphale to shut his eyes. It raced down his sleeves, dripping off his fingers. It pooled around his feet, seeping through his shoes and into his socks.

Still not a sound from the crowd.

When he was completely soaked through, the deluge ceased, Michael stepping back so that Gabriel could stand behind Aziraphale.

“There is no place in Heaven,” Gabrel intoned, “for an angel who is so easily corrupted. There is no place for you here or in Hell. You are banished for all time.”

_ I don’t even want to be here, _ Aziraphale thought, but somehow couldn't muster the anger. Couldn’t muster any emotion at all.

They were supposed to be finished already. He and Crowley had quit on their own terms. But Heaven had dragged him back to get the final word. Heaven always got the final word.

“If that’s all?” He tugged at the drenched fabric of his waistcoat, hoping to preserve at least a little dignity.

“Just one more thing.” Gabriel smiled and held out his hand. “Your seal of office.”

Aziraphale clutched at the gold ring around his pinky. He’d worn it since Eden, in one form or another - as a ring, a pin, a cylinder seal on a chain. Yes, it was a symbol of Heaven, but it was also a part of himself.

Not anymore.

Fingers trembling, he tugged it free and placed it on Gabriel’s palm.

The Archangel nodded and waved a hand at the crowd. WIth a sharp stamp of feet, a path opened through the ranks of angels.

His trousers clung wetly to the back of his legs, his shoulders hunched as they tried to pull away from the dripping fabric that covered them. With every step Aziraphale took, down the steps and through the crowd, his shoes squeaked, the only noise in the silent chamber.

When he glanced back, he could see a trail of dirty wet footprints, staining the pristine floor of Paradise.

\--

Aziraphale had nowhere to go.

He stood on the pavement before the lobby, water dripping still from his sleeves and trouser cuffs.

A bus stopped and he numbly climbed aboard.

It wasn’t any particular route: all buses stopped at Heaven and Hell if you knew how to request it, and whatever bus picked you up brought you wherever you wanted to go.

Aziraphale sank into a seat, hands folded in his lap. He tried to form a plan, but his mind kept sliding back to the same thought.

He had nowhere to go.

\--

Aziraphale didn’t remember arriving at Crowley’s flat. He must have done so, must have taken the lift up. Must have ridden that bus through half of London on the way over.

But he didn’t really remember.

Crowley’s smile dropped the moment the door opened. “Aziraphale!”

“Is…” His clothes had dried, partially; they still clung to him like a clammy second skin. “Is the offer to stay still open?”

“Of course.” A long hand reached quickly through the door. “Angel, what happ--”

“Holy Water.”

Crowley jerked away. Brow furrowed, he opened the door wider, keeping his arms well back as Aziraphale passed.

The angel stood in the center of the large empty study. Didn’t know where to go. But Crowley beckoned, guiding him through the solarium to the bedroom.

Aziraphale sank onto the edge of the bed, staring at a blank concrete wall.

_ It’s cold. _ A stray thought wandering through his mind.  _ The temperature is fine, but it’s cold. _

Then a weight settled across his shoulders, comfortably heavy. A thick black blanket. Crowley settled onto the bed next to him, being careful that no part of them touched.

“Can you tell me what happened?”

“Gabriel.” His fingers plucked at the edge of the blanket. The lack of ring seemed startling. “Called me back up. Said there were...loose ends to tie up. He--” Aziraphale gasped, a shaking breath. “He took my shop…”

Crowley gently rested his fingers between his shoulder blades, rubbing in a careful circle. Aziraphale could feel the tension in the gesture - ready to pull away if the slightest hint of moisture crept through. “The water?”

Aziraphale just shrugged. It somehow sounded too absurd to say out loud. It wasn’t even that different from what had happened in Hell, when you got down to it, so why did it bother him? He’d already lost his shop once before. Why did any of it bother him?

Why couldn’t he stop shaking?

The pressure of Crowley’s hand vanished and the demon appeared before him, tugging gently on the blanket. “Follow me. Come on.”

\--

Crowley knelt before the bathtub - an enormous soaking tub, more than big enough for a six-foot demon to stretch out and luxuriate - dragging his fingers through the steaming water, creating little swirls and eddies of blackness.

“It can be really hard to get Holy Water out of things, even after they dry,” he explained, voice echoing warmly off the tile walls. “But I’ve learned a few tricks over the years.”

“Ah.” Aziraphale watched another swirl of black move through the water and vanish. “So after my blessing, now I’ll be cursed.” It didn’t feel sad, or funny, or ironic. It just was.

“The water’s cursed, just slightly. When it touches the Holy Water, they cancel out.” He glanced over his shoulder, light flashing off black lenses. “Might sting a little as you climb in.”

He shuffled forward a step, shoes still squeaking on the floor.

“No, hang on.” Crowley filled a basin with the cursed water. “Drop your clothes in here. Go on.”

Aziraphale stared at it for a long moment, almost forgetting what he was supposed to do. Then he peeled his jacket off, letting it fall, slowly soaking water into the already-drenched fibers.

Next the bowtie, fingers fumbling. The knot had somehow pulled too tight. Crowley watched him struggle with it, hands clenched at his sides, then abruptly turned to tend to the bathtub again.

When the last of his clothes were removed, Aziraphale shuffled forward again.

Crowley rose quickly, holding a bucket of water, still keeping his face turned firmly away. “I’ll just -- you have a nice long soak, I’ll just go take care of, you know, anything else that might be...er…”

“I’d rather you didn’t.” Aziraphale rested his fingers on the side of the tub, looking down into the billowing steam. “If it can wait. I just...I’d rather you didn’t.”

Aziraphale didn’t look away from the tub, and Crowley’s eyes were still hidden, yet he knew the demon glanced over at him - and nodded.

\--

It did sting, as Aziraphale lowered his foot into the water. More than the sting of hot water on unprepared flesh should, but far from the burn of acid. The water blackened slightly across the surface, but as his leg passed through, the feeling faded, leaving only the bath’s warm embrace.

He sat down, sinking past his stomach, leaned back to rest his head against the curve of the tub. Still, the water only rose to the middle of his chest.

“How is it?” Crowley knelt beside the tub, arms crossed, steam clouding his glasses.

Aziraphale shrugged. He scooped up some water to splash his face, but even the snap of curse meeting blessing wasn’t enough to bring him to his senses. His mind drifted along, not quite grasping anything.

“Lean forward.”

He pushed himself upright again, hands resting on his knees below the surface of the water. Crowley slowly tipped the bucket over him, slightly cooler water pouring onto the crown of his head, saturating his hair, running down his neck, and across his cheeks and nose in rivulets to splash into the tub. The stinging stream moved down his back, across his shoulders.

“Now lean back again.”

Mechanically, Aziraphale sank down to rest his head again on the cool porcelain. Crowley poured the last of the water across his neck and chest, and it barely stung at all.

“That should do it.”

He still didn’t feel any different. Just...numb.

As if Aziraphale were the only being in a vast, empty universe, adrift, alone.

Until Crowley’s fingers brushed against his cheek, like a spark of light in the darkness. Aziraphale gasped, and the fingers started to pull away, but he grabbed them, clung to them, pressed them so hard against his jaw that his teeth began to ache.

After a moment, Crowley gently pulled free. Of course. But once the heat of those fingers was gone, everything again faded into a fuzziness that had nothing to do with the condensation now filling the air.

“Lean forward.”

Aziarphale obeyed without thinking.

And Crowley slid into the tub behind him.

\--

“Is this alright?” Crowley asked, legs bracketing Aziraphale’s thighs.

The angel nodded, still not sure what to say. Crowley’s fingers moved across his shoulders, pushing aside droplets of water - now neither blessed nor cursed - then rose up to sink into sopping curls, just for a moment.

“Here.” The sound of something being squeezed, Crowley rubbed his hands together, and then they returned, massaging a lightly scented shampoo into Aziraphale’s scalp. “Just...breathe deep. What do you smell?”

“Ah…” For a moment, all he could focus on was the feel of fingers against his skin, and the comfort, the relief, like scratching an itch he hadn’t known was there. “Flowers. Lavender.” Another deep breath. “Chamomile. And...vanilla.”

“Yeah.” Crowley’s touch moved back down his neck and across his shoulders, trailing soft suds in its wake. “Helps me relax when I’m, you know, off my game. Don’t tell anyone though, that’s a secret.”

“That you like flowers?”

“That I’m ever off my game.” For a second, Aziraphale could feel a smile tugging at his lips.

Crowley poured water into his hair again, a smaller stream this time, likely just a cup. Aziraphale watched the suds pool in front of him.

“Lean back.”

He only meant to tip back his head, but instead Aziraphale found himself reclining, back pressed against Crowley’s stomach and chest, head resting on his shoulder. He closed his eyes, concentrating on every sensation, the heat, the softness of skin against skin.

He still felt adrift, but now there were two beings in this strange, misty universe.

The water poured across his brow, splashing down onto Crowley as well.

“Alright. You can sit up again. I can try another scent if you like.”

Aziraphale shook his head, pressing back more, desperate for something he couldn’t put into words. He couldn’t even imagine what it was he needed.

Until Crowley’s arms folded around him, crossing his stomach, pulling them together. Their faces pressed against each other, cheek to cheek, breath joining together to make swirls through the steam.

“Is this alright?”

Something felt off.

Aziraphale pulled his head away, just enough to turn and see Crowley’s face. To see Crowley’s eyes, golden and soft and worried and sad. And something else, burning away behind it all.

“You took your glasses off.”

Strange. Their bare bodies pressed together beneath the soft water, but it was only then that Aziraphale felt that they were naked.

“Is that a problem?”

Instead of answering, he sank back against Crowley, finding his hands again under the water, twining their fingers together. Feeling the heat of Crowley’s palms, the steady drumbeat of the heart against his back.

“They...they took everything…” he said, though he could barely feel his lips move.

“I know.” A gentle squeeze. “I know.”

“My shop…”

“I’m sorry, Angel…”

“It...my home…”

“Yeah.” Again, Crowley’s cheek brushed his. “My home, too.”

With those words, something inside Aziraphale finally broke, and he began to cry.

\--

Some time later, Aziraphale lay on Crowley’s bed, wrapped in a soft robe. Crowley lay beside him, before him, facing him, still with those eyes taking everything in.

“I’m sorry you...had to see that,” Aziraphale managed.

“Shut up,” Crowley growled, but without any venom. One thumb brushed gently under Aziraphale’s eye, wiping away the last tear. Then his fingers drifted back through Aziraphale’s damp curls, and somehow that almost set him to crying again.

“I just...don’t know what to do anymore. I thought I finally could...make my own life.” Aziraphale looked down at his fingers, resting on the bed between them. No ring. Would he ever get used to that? “And they come along to remind me. That they’re in control. That they can still hurt me, still take away everything I have. Still leave me feeling so weak and alone.”

“Hey.” Crowley’s finger under his chin lifted Azirphale’s gaze to meet those eyes once more. “You’re not weak. This was the worst they could do, and you survived it. They tried to control you for thousands of years, and you survived it. They tried to  _ kill you, _ and you survived it. You’ll get through this. You’ll build a life again. Because you’re not weak.”

“I only managed all that because...because you were there…”

“That hasn’t changed.”

“No.” Aziraphale took Crowley’s hand in both of his, pressed it between them. “I suppose not.”

They fell into silence, a different silence from that of Heaven, one filled with the sounds of breathing, of quietly shifting limbs, of the occasional  _ pat  _ of a drop of water falling off Crowley’s hair. They didn’t need to be so noisy, but they chose to be, becoming more and more a part of the world they loved with every breath, every beat of their hearts.

“When we made our plan,” Aziraphale continued slowly, “to fool our sides, to...finally be free. I thought I’d lost everything then, too. And...I was fine. I thought, it hurts, but I’ll be alright. I can stand any loss, as long as...as Crowley is here.” Why was it so difficult to speak? Almost as hard as it had been in Heaven. “And I do still feel that way, I do. It’s just...for a little while, I - I thought I could have both. But...I suppose…” He cut himself off, fighting back the tears again.

Crowley’s arms wrapped around him, pulling Aziraphale close to bury his face in the soft black fleece of the demon’s robe. His grip constricted, so tight, tight enough to hold Aziraphale together when he was certain he would fall apart.

“I was going to invite you to move in,” Aziraphale blurted out.

“I know.” Crowley’s breath tickled across his hair. “I was going to say yes.”

Clutching at the fabric of his robe, Aziraphale burrowed closer, until he could feel the heat rising off Crowley’s chest again.

“It doesn’t have to be over,” Crowley said gently, fingers scratching at Aziraphale’s back just hard enough to be felt through the robe. “We can fight it, if you want. Convince Gabriel to give it back, or at least let you take back your things. Every contract has a loophole. Or we can leave London, start over somewhere new. Paris. New York. Some village in the middle of nowhere. Whatever you want.”

“Don’t know what I want.” The numbness was fading, but it was still so  _ much, _ the size of his problems, the world, the future threatened to overwhelm him.

It was too much to put into words. But with Crowley, he didn’t have to.

“Then never mind all that. Just tonight. What do you want tonight? Dinner? Wine? The theater?”

“I want…”

“Yeah?”

“I want...this. Us. Here. Together.” He turned his head a little, pressing an ear to Crowley’s chest. “Is that alright?”

“Angel…” Crowley’s chin rested atop his head. “Of course it’s alright.”

He could feel the bob of Crowley’s throat as he swallowed, the twitch of his head as he nodded, the way his arms tightened, pulling them even closer together.

Aziraphale closed his eyes and he smiled, letting the world wash away, forgetting pain and loss, forgetting everything but the two of them, drifting together through the universe. Nothing but that feeling of warmth, of safety, of belonging.

That feeling of home.

**Author's Note:**

> Thank you for reading!
> 
> I've been a bit down lately, and found this old story that I'd started months ago, and picked along at it until it was finished. The result is pretty sad, but sometimes that's the catharsis we need.
> 
> I do know what the happy ending for this fic would be (and I will share it with anyone who asks in the comments) but couldn't quite write it without sacrificing the tone. If the mood takes me, I may try writing it as a chapter 2, but I notice I've said that a lot this year, so consider this a "maybe" project.
> 
> I'm working on several big projects over the next month or so, which means I won't be updating regularly. I encourage anyone who hasn't done so already to check out my story "Boundless Love," last year's Advent Calendar prompts, for something a bit more seasonal. A few of them are also on the sad side, but if you read through the end there should be happy endings for everyone.
> 
> Thanks again to my readers, and the multiple betas I had (Dashicra1 and ArcticRose) as I worked through How To Not Be So Bloody Sad. Please leave a comment below!


End file.
